I HAVE known and have been observing Professor Wole Soyinka since 1962 (52 years), but from a distance. I do not have the privilege of having been one of his former students or a close personal friend. Nevertheless, I have been an avid admirer of the man throughout this period. When you passionately believe in a cause or some principles, which you verbalize frequently, and another person who is equally passionate about such principles, not only verbalizes it, but also takes physical and life threatening actions to realize it, you are bound to admire, even fear that person. Soyinka is that rare type of person.
Throughout his adult life, Soyinka has not only expressed his beliefs and principles, he has dangerously pursued them as a one-man army. That he is not only alive, but is 80, is clearly evidence of divine protection, because he never protected himself.
In 1963, I was a 200 level Law Student at the University of Ife, Ibadan Branch. (There was no Ife Branch then). Wole Soyinka was a Lecturer in the Department of English, and at the same time an active Playwright and Producer.
The Western Region was in turmoil. The split in the ruling Action Group party was at its height and Akintola was extremely unpopular in the Region particularly in the Campus. Students being what they were, expressed their acute contempt for Akintola and virtual hero worship for Awolowo, loudly and boisterously. This made the University administration very uncomfortable.
Consequently on ‘orders from above,’ the Deputy Vice-Chancellor or Pro-Vice-chancellor, Professor Sabiru Biobaku, summoned all the Academic Staff to the University Assembly Hall and read them the University credo, namely, all members of staff must be loyal to the Akintola Government, otherwise they must resign or be sacked. The next day, Wole Soyinka resigned. “He had put his money where his mouth was.”
Unfortunately for Akintola, Soyinka was given a job by the neighbouring University of Ibadan. He had hardly settled down there when he started a series of very blistering political lampoons of Akintola and his ‘running mate’ Remi Fani Kayode, entitled prophetically, “Before the Black out”. It was staged at Trenchard Hall, University of Ibadan, and naturally the University of Ife Campus was emptied of its student population nightly as there was an exodus from Ife Campus to the Ibadan Campus.
One evening two years later, and a few months before the fateful Western Regional Elections of 1965, when Akintola’s scheduled pre-election political broadcast was to be aired, we were all startled to hear a strange voice on Radio, which obviously came “to bury Akintola, not to praise him”. The Federal and Western Regional Governments, staunch allies in the plot to delete Awolowo from the political scene, now declared that Soyinka was the Radio Station culprit and that he had held up the station at gun point and procured the broadcast of his own anti-Akintola recording under duress of his weapon.
The rest as they say is history. He was hunted, gave himself up, was arrested and tried. Thank God for little mercies. If it was in the Abacha era, that would have been the end. But the innocent Akintola and his backer, Tafawa Balewa, allowed a Court trial for the man. To the absolute shock of the conspirators, a young and little known Judge called Kayode Eso, who was assigned the case in order to test his loyalty to the Government and party in power, held that Soyinka’s guilt was not proved beyond reasonable doubt. He discharged and acquitted him. For this, the young Judge was transferred to ‘Siberia’, which the Akure Judicial Division, then was and he had to drive from Ibadan to Akure every morning and drive back the same way every evening, only to repeat this death baiting feat the next morning.
Anyone who had such a narrow escape would have taken the hint and gone into seclusion, not Wole Soyinka. He tarried a little, and then plunged head long into the brewing Nigeria-Biafra War, criss-crossing between Nigeria and Biafra as if he was taking an afternoon leisure stroll to the speakers’ corner in Hyde Park in London. He tried to fashion out some form of agreement between the parties in conflict and when this did not seem to work, he commenced putting up a “third force” which would take over the country, and return it to sanity.
Death seemed to be afraid of Soyinka. Perhaps he had some access to the charm, ‘gbekude’, because he walked through many valleys of the shadow of death unscathed like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. However, a clearly exasperated Gowon had had enough. He had Soyinka arrested by some goons in the special Branch of the Police Force. They could not understand this strange man and he was detained for about three years. Even then one good thing came out of that detention – the book, The Man Died. It was not merely a diary of Soyinka’s stay in prison, but a pungent and vivid description of the mentality of those in power and the type of sordid violent and pathetic culture they imposed on the society they inflicted themselves upon.

The next great battle of Soyinka’s life was the war against Abacha. This time, they watched him, trailed him, bugged his phones, put his house under surveillance and even broke into it uninvited. Soyinka saw the hand writing on the wall. He realised that this prehistoric animal was no Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. He finally took the NADECO route to safety and lived to fight another day, which he did. With his Comrades like John Kayode Fayemi, he established Radio Kudirat in Europe, which not only challenged the obscene falsehood and shameful propaganda of the NTA and FRCN, but also provided psychological relief for an embattled and traumatised population sick of the fawning and toadying sycophancy of the Government Media Organisations and the political class.
Nigeria is indeed lucky to be able to celebrate the life of this 80-year-old warrior. So what next for Professor Wole Soyinka, Statesman, Activist, Warrior, Philosopher, Poet, Dramatist, Nobel Laureate? Soyinka is Nigeria’s, nay, Africa’s greatest Human Asset, after Mandela. We must exploit and milk this Asset whilst he is still here with us. There is presently a yawning vacuum, a great lacuna of leadership in Nigeria. We have a President, but no leader. I am therefore suggesting that we adopt the Iranian Model and appoint Professor Wole Soyinka, the equivalent and status of the Ayatollah of Iran. We should of course not use the word ‘Ayatollah’. Let us proclaim him our national and spiritual leader who should give binding guidance and directives to whoever is in Government. That way, no matter who is the head of the Government, in the usual Nigerian way, with the Nigerian orientation, mentality and culture, we shall have a spiritual and political pilot whose great internal light, outstanding integrity, high principles, unyielding quest for justice, incomparable patriotism, unrivalled intellect, and basic natural goodness and decency, can see us through the present overwhelming darkness, anarchy and looming catastrophe. We have a Moses, let us acknowledge him and follow his leadership. There may yet be a promised land buried deep down in the Nigerian national spirit, but we need a leader to take us there.


Source:
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/opinion/columnist/170287-sagay-soyinka-s-odyssey-and-nigeria-s-destiny

What a great read...




But not all of us share the same view, especially the " Ayatollah " axis.

But Soyinka is a great man, no doubt about that.

Wole and Fela are my all Time Nigerian Heroes! I need their Tattooes on my Body

NONE OF WOLE SOYINKA KIND. CHINUA ACHEBE TRIED IT, HE FAILED. CHIMANDA IS FINDING IT HARD TO CATCH HIS (SOYINKA ) GLIMPSE

#RESPECT TO WOLE SOYINKA

see human beings trying desperately to overrate soyinka (who undoubtedly is great by his own right). Well, camp cultists still owe much of their existence to him (...just saying)

For moi, its achebe, the father of modern african literature, nobel or no nobel (i didnt say it, ask nobel laureatte gordimer). Some people's achievements cowers the political and eurocentric nobel commitee (no offense to the nobel prize itself...), Achebe is one of them.

500GPA: NONE OF WOLE SOYINKA KIND. CHINUA ACHEBE TRIED IT, HE FAILED. CHIMANDA IS FINDING IT HARD TO CATCH HIS (SOYINKA ) GLIMPSE

#RESPECT TO WOLE SOYINKA

see the post above you....

ITSE SAGAY AN IJAWMAN:

"Nigeria has a president but not a leader".

Sagay has always been consistent in his view even though I have had reasons in the past to disagree with him.
One thing you cannot deny is that he is a brilliant member of the law profession.
What I still find hard to believe is that why does obj gravitate towards clueless retardz like Shagari ,yaradua ,jonathan ,turaki and not intelligent people like sagay ,El rufai,pat utomi etc.
While being intelligent does not guarantee performance,at least you are guaranteed the ability to identify problems.
I have said it in the past and I will say it again.The salvation of Nigeria lies in the hands of a few good men deciding to do the right thing and not the person, the citizen decide to vote for.
Nigerians have continuously shown that they are incapable of making informed choices .